Skype

Initially my plan was to Skype with a teacher in the Hamlin area that I had recently reconnected with over New Years, she was 2 years ahead of me in college. The plan was that we would allow students the opportunity to talk with one another and pair them up so they could plan on a collaborative writing assignment. Every year my class writes a story about "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" so when the book Personal Learning Networks mentioned this I thought it would be a great idea to implement it. However, because of the DSTEP testing and the inability for the access the computer lab we quickly realized that this would not be an option.

Instead what we did was simply gave the students the opportunity to see another class on Skype. This was, for some a rather comical experience mainly because they did not quite grasp the understanding that they were on Camera since they could not see themselves as easily as the other class. This was a mild issue for both groups because we occasionally saw students playing with shoes and even picking their nose. Not everyone in the class had the opportunity to talk, but the ones that did were interesting because a few of the students were the most vocal in the classroom became very reserved.

Once students got comfortable the conversation really started to grow occasionally getting cheers or boos when various basketball teams were talked about. A few students wanted to share the poems that they had been working on so they really enjoyed being able to share their creations with a larger community.

As a collective hole I believe having the opportunity to Skype with another classroom can be very valuable. It would be even more worthwhile to Skype with a classroom that may be in a different region then we are. Even a classroom West River would have major benefits. I do have a Kindergarten teacher that is hoping to Skype with other classes next year. She really would like to do it with India, but the 12 hour time difference does not make this very easy. One option I will be discussing with her is the possibility of just the teacher Skyping with a different class. Another option would be using http://meetings.io/ and invite a few students to join in on the conversation from home.